That just makes Refresh Actions an even worse way to get Wounds back, which is the crux of my point. Not that I don't like spells healing - but that Refresh needs to be beefed up entirely because it costs an Action die. That or make it free (cost-wise).

That just makes Refresh Actions an even worse way to get Wounds back, which is the crux of my point. Not that I don't like spells healing - but that Refresh needs to be beefed up entirely because it costs an Action die. That or make it free (cost-wise).

Yes and no. We apply it to wounds first and they other forms of damage, so it's possible that your AD expenditure can net you 5 wounds if you're that far gone.

I recently took a look at the Agents of Oblivion setting book for Savage Worlds Deluxe, and its gear system is pretty awesome.

Essentially, every character gets a number of gear picks called Resource Picks equal to 2 + however many ranks the character has in the Red Tape skill. Same concept as Spycraft 2.0, but so much simpler and easier to use.

Resource Picks can also be used for more boring stuff like weapons and other basic gear at a ratio of 4 pieces of gear per 1 resource pick. But who would pick those over a Microtool Set to be your portable McGyver, an Infiltration Suit, and a Tangler to trap anything that chases you?

A few notes on Sticky Cover: most modern warfare title's combat take place at ranges vastly inside the actual engagement ranges of those conflicts.So while that may be a sop to playability, suggesting it's particularly realistic is incorrect. Particularly if there's also surfeit of Chest High Walls.Second, any installation or target worthy of protection and capable of landscaping won't have Chest High Walls every 5-15ft for the comfort and safety of attackers.Well, maybe if they were just painted cardboard and a few had fragmentation mines hidden in them...but probably not, and definitely not if you're being serious. There will instead be elevated shooting positions that give defenders both a superior angle of fire and protection from retaliation. And possibly more, but that's the minimum.

Lastly, the Refresh action always had a flaw that, IMExp, made it nearly unusable: to benefit from it you to not be attacked during the round of recovery. Not even hit, just menaced. I think this was a smart, plausible detail -trying to get your drek together under fire is famously difficult, but it still rendered the effect mostly useless. Even if you had Total Cover and you couldn't even be hit, even a little blind Suppressive Fire ate the AD.

Random association, also Cheap Shots seemed under-useful. They were on that short list of things that never got used.

As for what I like...?To start: weapon balance and qualities (no obvious or totally superior standouts), variable error and crit range, stress damage, bags full of guns (and sacks of hammers), damage saves (the math was annoying, but the results were worth it), Aiming and Bracing, Basic Feats that encourage team-work, the Gatling quality, Chase Scenes, how Flash and Bang damage worked -really I could probably do your query better by inverting it and you can quite literally assume that what I don't complain about is Just Fine.

However, diving for cover and then hiding behind it with bullets pinging off the wall while waiting for your health to regenerate so you can pop out to shoot back is a very compelling experience. It feels like that is how a gunfight should work, even if it isn't. Especially if your impression of such things comes from a lifetime of watching television.

More than that though, I'm kinda suggesting that instead of seeing a James Bond movie and thinking they want to play a TTRPG like that, people these days may play Call of Duty and want to play a TTRPG like that.

So in the same way you can make a game that plays on the conventions of Bond movies or Saturday morning cartoons, you could, and I would argue these days might want to, make a game that plays on the conventions of Modern Military Shooters.

So the goal of the game is to create a story that looks like one from a MMS, only with the advantages of the TTRPG format - greater freedom of action, shared content creation with your mates, play acting and doing accents, etc.

I guess that might involve some kind of troupe play, with players playing a variety of different characters, many of whom will be killed before the end of the game.

Possibly also some kind of turret sequence minigame. Maybe even get out a Simon Says for the quicktime events... :-)

More than that though, I'm kinda suggesting that instead of seeing a James Bond movie and thinking they want to play a TTRPG like that, people these days may play Call of Duty and want to play a TTRPG like that.

So in the same way you can make a game that plays on the conventions of Bond movies or Saturday morning cartoons, you could, and I would argue these days might want to, make a game that plays on the conventions of Modern Military Shooters.

We've talked a bit about this previously but I'll reiterate here for clarity: Spycraft Third Edition is primarily an espionage RPG. It will feature robust modern combat, yes, but it is not, in the core release and line, focused on military action.

Now, military action is still part of our bread and butter - it's just being separated out so it gets the same level of attention we're giving the spying part of the program. So your comments are helpful. They indicate that it might be best to consider some optional rules like this over in that side of the game. Will ponder.

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So the goal of the game is to create a story that looks like one from a MMS, only with the advantages of the TTRPG format - greater freedom of action, shared content creation with your mates, play acting and doing accents, etc.

I guess that might involve some kind of troupe play, with players playing a variety of different characters, many of whom will be killed before the end of the game.

Possibly also some kind of turret sequence minigame. Maybe even get out a Simon Says for the quicktime events... :-)

Troupe play is always a lynchpin of well-reasoned roleplaying and I think you'll see our systems generally doing more of it in the future. It's unlikely, however, that we'll build core mini-games that rely on either storming turrets or surviving a bloodbath. Situations in adventures? Perhaps. Core rules? It doesn't work.

Shooters do what they do very well. It's actually counter-productive to start with them as the model for a tabletop RPG because TRPGs operate in a completely different medium with completely different strengths and weaknesses. The best-designed TRPGs get this and play to their merits rather than slavishly aping those of another format. Same is true the other way around, just as it's true of books being adapted to movies and so on.

A call shot would be nice. My group is still using the first ed of Spycraft. Waiting on thrid. We notice that there was no real aim shot. Head,Arm and or shoot the enemy weapon out of their hand. I for one would like to see this. Pallidum Books cover this with a -. While TS cover this by Weapon Value without your Dex added in. I think Warhammer 40 k makes it a - on 2D10. So there should be away to add this to new Spycraft. Thankyou.

In the newer Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space there are no actual hit points or Vitality/Wound system. What they do to track damage is damage comes right off the Attribute (Awareness, Coordination, Ingenuity, Presence, Resolve, and Strength)- depending on what kind of attack it was. The lower temporary Attribute score is now used for whatever appropriate task.

Attribute + Skill (+ Trait if applicable) + 2d6 = Result.

I like that method of tracking damage. Physical damage is obvious. But social encounters can be resolved the same way- Presence or Resolve damage would be like humiliation or losing a major debate. A shot to the ego. Very versatile.

I also fancy the Initiative system (though, I don't know if it would work well for espionage as well as it seems to work for Doctor Who. Initiative goes in this order:

1. Talkers2. Movers3. Doers4. Fighters

I've considered using this system for a different BBC show- Sherlock, just because the damage system is so versatile. That Initiative system seems fitting for Sherlock, too.

One of the very rare things I liked very much (or even at all) about Scion is that there was no notion of round and particularly round duration. Combat worked like that :- Roll Initiative- Highest initiative plays first, then the next, then the next, up to zero, and you "close the circle" (i.e. if the highest initiative was 14 you have a circle 14 squares in perimeter and you just move around the circle during the combat)- First man acts, only once, and reduces his current Initiative by the Initiative cost of his action. Typically, an almost-free action has an Initiative cost of almost 1 and a combat action has an Initiative cost between 5 or 10. Longer actions take even more than that.- Then the others acts at their turn, and each action reduces each ones' Initiative by a certain value...

This has several interesting effect :- There's no notion of rounds, it's all about Initiative.- You don't have to over-think what you're doing at your turn: two half actions and a free one, a complex action, a full round one? It's one action and you reduce your Initiative as indicated.- There's a real difference in gameplay between light and heavy weapons: dagger wielders get to act a lot even if they inflict little damage, while hammer fighters act little, but hit hard.- Action interruption is natural: if you have the chance to start and finish your action before another character gets the chance to finish his own, you may disrupt his attempt.- I think I remember movement to be treated transparently, you can move a little bit every time you act, depending on the Initiative cost involved, and only specific actions prevent you to move while performing them.- Interestingly, and contrary to what I thought at first, it makes the game quite fluid!

I might have had a few things wrong, and I guess it's a little bit late for such a major change in the combat development, but I just happen to think about that so I posted it right away. One day, I'd like to see another game re-use this only interesting mechanical feature of Scion. Even more so because, it's something Spycraft 2.0 was very close to have as well.

In the newer Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space there are no actual hit points or Vitality/Wound system. What they do to track damage is damage comes right off the Attribute (Awareness, Coordination, Ingenuity, Presence, Resolve, and Strength)- depending on what kind of attack it was. The lower temporary Attribute score is now used for whatever appropriate task.

Attribute + Skill (+ Trait if applicable) + 2d6 = Result.

I like that method of tracking damage. Physical damage is obvious. But social encounters can be resolved the same way- Presence or Resolve damage would be like humiliation or losing a major debate. A shot to the ego. Very versatile.

We really like attribute damage of this particular variety as well. Mistborn players can probably tell that.

As it happens, this particular damage system wouldn't work with our current version of the Spycraft Third Edition rules (it'll become clear why in time), but we do in fact have both physical and mental damage tracks of a sort, and I'm hopeful they'll do what we need there. If not, that's something there's still plenty of time to change.

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I also fancy the Initiative system (though, I don't know if it would work well for espionage as well as it seems to work for Doctor Who. Initiative goes in this order:

1. Talkers2. Movers3. Doers4. Fighters

I've considered using this system for a different BBC show- Sherlock, just because the damage system is so versatile. That Initiative system seems fitting for Sherlock, too.

Yeah, that initiative system really nails that show's vibe in a great way. You're right that it wouldn't work for what we're trying to do though.

One of the very rare things I liked very much (or even at all) about Scion is that there was no notion of round and particularly round duration. Combat worked like that :- Roll Initiative- Highest initiative plays first, then the next, then the next, up to zero, and you "close the circle" (i.e. if the highest initiative was 14 you have a circle 14 squares in perimeter and you just move around the circle during the combat)- First man acts, only once, and reduces his current Initiative by the Initiative cost of his action. Typically, an almost-free action has an Initiative cost of almost 1 and a combat action has an Initiative cost between 5 or 10. Longer actions take even more than that.- Then the others acts at their turn, and each action reduces each ones' Initiative by a certain value...

This has several interesting effect :- There's no notion of rounds, it's all about Initiative.- You don't have to over-think what you're doing at your turn: two half actions and a free one, a complex action, a full round one? It's one action and you reduce your Initiative as indicated.- There's a real difference in gameplay between light and heavy weapons: dagger wielders get to act a lot even if they inflict little damage, while hammer fighters act little, but hit hard.- Action interruption is natural: if you have the chance to start and finish your action before another character gets the chance to finish his own, you may disrupt his attempt.- I think I remember movement to be treated transparently, you can move a little bit every time you act, depending on the Initiative cost involved, and only specific actions prevent you to move while performing them.- Interestingly, and contrary to what I thought at first, it makes the game quite fluid!

I might have had a few things wrong, and I guess it's a little bit late for such a major change in the combat development, but I just happen to think about that so I posted it right away. One day, I'd like to see another game re-use this only interesting mechanical feature of Scion. Even more so because, it's something Spycraft 2.0 was very close to have as well.

So it's a little like the old Shadowrun initiative system, except with more granularity? Huh. Neat.

In the long ago, in the before time, when I worked up my Roll and Keep version of the Spycraft rules - the game was originally supposed to be Roll and Keep, a la L5R - I had a very similar mechanic I called Screen Time. That may eventually appear again in something else.

The Spycraft Third initiative system is one of the things of which we're most proud, actually. It finally addresses all the various needs of modern tactical combat - team coordination, joint actions, and so on - in a way that's exciting, fluid, and fun. In my opinion anyway. It's a big change, but so incredibly perfect and simple that I think everyone will wonder why we weren't doing it this all along.